Sue Stapely, once described by the Gazette as the ‘grande dame’ of legal PR, has died. She was 78.
Stapely produced programmes for the BBC before qualifying as a solicitor and becoming a partner in a national law firm. Head of the Law Society’s public relations team between 1990 and 1995, she later moved into reputation management and ran her own independent consultancy.
Stapely was a director of Fishburn Hedges, and also worked for comms consultancies Edge International and Quiller Consultants.
Stapely’s extensive extra-curricular activities were mainly centred on the arts. She was a governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company, chair of Playground Proms (bringing classical music to schools in deprived areas) and, until recently, a trustee of the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art.
She was a founding board member of the Media Standards Trust and author of 'Media Relations for Lawyers', published by the Law Society.
Stapely’s stint at the BBC included a spell as production assistant on two series of the original ‘Doctor Who’, one with second Doctor Patrick Troughton, and the other with his successor, Jon Pertwee. ‘I recall vividly Alpha Centauri and a range of rather louche monsters and some fairly dodgy special effects, as well as rather too much time spent in the cold water tank in Ealing Studios filming fight sequences,’ she told the Gazette some years ago. Back in the 1960s, she also had a bit part as a librarian in an episode of The Likely Lads.
Mark Stephens CBE commented: 'Sue Stapely was a ray of light lighting the way for lawyers from the stuffy and pompous to the accessible and user-friendly. She brought the skills she learnt from being the producer of Dr Who, to a solicitor in private practice, to being the first person to be appointed by the Law Society to run its PR at a time when lawyers thought it infra dig to engage with the public. The role was groundbreaking and the level of institutional resistance is difficult to convey in the modern era.'
He added: 'Sue innovated media training for lawyers – recognising that it was vital to train a group of media-friendly lawyers who could change the public perception of the legal profession. I was fortunate to be in the initial group and I will be forever grateful to her for equipping me with the raw skills to speak on TV and radio. Sue then went on to Fishburn Hedges, where she invented crisis PR for lawyers. The fact that it is now so common shows the foresight she had.’
David McNeill, director of public affairs at the Law Society, said: 'I had the privilege and joy to work for [Sue] in my first [spell] at the Law Society. "Super Sue" was a whirlwind of fun and creativity and brave with it. She took on the Law Society’s historic fustiness and was a one woman transformation programme.'
Former Law Society president Tony Girling once said of Stapely: 'She was the only person who could go into a revolving door and come out in front of you.'
Tony Roe, a partner at Dexter Montague in Reading, said: 'I have been in touch with some of my friends from my junior lawyer days and we remembered that Sue was a great supporter of the Trainee Solicitors Group (TSG) and Young Solicitors Group, YSG. Without her presence as a PR guru at the Law Society, I would never have been media-trained in my role as TSG public relations officer, one of the things I owe to the Society.'
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